Events of 1531

January–June

• January 26 – Lisbon, Portugal is hit by an earthquake in which thousands die.

• February 11 – Henry VIII of England is recognised as supreme head of the Church of England.

• February 27 – Lutheran princes in the Holy Roman Empire form a defensive alliance known as the Schmalkaldic League.

• February (or March) – Battle of Antukyah: Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi of Adal defeats the Ethiopian army.

• April – Battle of Puná: Francisco Pizarro defeats the island's native inhabitants.

• April 16 – The city of Puebla, Mexico is founded.

• June 24 – The city of San Juan del Río, Mexico is founded.

July–December

• July 25 – The city of Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico is founded.

• September 22 – Battle of Obertyn: The Moldavians are defeated by Polish forces under Jan Amor Tarnowski, allowing the Polish Crown to retrieve Pokucie.

• October 11 – Battle of Kappel: The forces of Zürich are defeated by the Catholic cantons. Huldrych Zwingli, the Swiss religious reformer, is killed.

• October 28 – Battle of Amba Sel: Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi again defeats the army of Lebna Dengel, Emperor of Ethiopia. The southern part of Ethiopia thus falls under Imam Ahmad's control.

• December 12 – The Virgin Mary, in the guise of Our Lady of Guadalupe, appears to Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, an Aztec convert to Catholicism.

Undated

• Andrea Alciato publishes the first part of his Emblemata.

• The Comet Halley appears (Perihelion: August 26).

• Conquistador Francisco de Montejo claims Chichen Itza as capital of Spanish ruled Yucatán.

• The University of Sarajevo is founded by Gazi Husrev-beg.

• Kõpu lighthouse is completed.

• An enormous drought in Henan province of China during the Ming Dynasty is coupled with the disaster of a gigantic swarm of locusts in the summer, forcing many in destitute agricultural communities to turn to cannibalism instead of dying off by starvation.

• Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor abolishes the worst abuses of the encomienda system by pressure of Bartolome de Las Casas.

• Witch-hunt in the town of Schiltach, Germany

Births

• September – Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby (d. 1594)

• October 12 – Jacques de Savoie, 2nd Duc de Nemours (d. 1585)

• 14 November – Richard Topcliffe, notorious English torturer and sadist (d. 1604)

• November 18 – Roberto di Ridolfi, Italian conspirator against Elizabeth I (d. 1612)

• date unknown

• *Henry, Count of Bréderode (d. 1568)

• *Akiyama Nobutomo, Japanese nobleman (d. 1575)

• *John Popham, Lord Chief Justice of England (d. 1607)

• *António, Prior of Crato, claimant to the throne of Portugal (d. 1595)

Deaths

• January 21 – Andrea del Sarto, Italian painter (b. 1487)

• February 16 – Johannes Stöffler, German mathematician (b. 1452)

• March 6 – Pedrarias Dávila, Spanish colonial administrator (b. c. 1440)

• May 19 – Jan Łaski, Polish statesman and diplomat (b. 1456)

• July 7 – Tilman Riemenschneider, German sculptor (b. 1460)

• July 17 – Hosokawa Takakuni, Japanese military commander (b. 1484)

• July 23 – Louis de Brézé, seigneur d'Anet, Marshal of Normandy and husband of Diane de Poitiers

• October 10 – Huldrych Zwingli, Swiss reformer (in battle) (b. 1484)

• September 22 – Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I of France (b. 1476)

• November 24 – Johannes Oecolampadius, German religious reformer (b. 1482)

• date unknown

• *Vallabhacharya, founder of the Hindu Vallabha sect (b. 1479)

• probable

• *Fernan Perez de Oliva, Spanish man of letters (b. 1492)